Interior Plastic/Door Scratch Question - HELP!
 

Anyone know if there is a way to get rid of/fix/cover these type of scratches on interior plastic surface?

The interior of my new (to me) Z is nearly perfect - but for these scratches on the driver's door - I didn't make them - came that way - but, looks like someone pushed door open with their shoe or a key something.

Any product/technique that can help? Can/should I replace?

Any help appreciated - thank you!

That plastic they use is more susceptible to scratches than pretty much any I've seen before. Wish I had an answer for you, hopefully someone here does for all of us!

I have some similar (but much worse) scratches on my center console... hope someone chimes in with a good solution. I have thought that maybe a pass with the heat gun might make them less noticeable, but I haven't tried it.

There's a lady that comes to my wife's dealership that fixes that type of stuff. Also does leather and cloth repair. I saw here use a heat gun and a metal spatual looking thing to smooth out scratches in a pathfinder door before. I would be afraid to get it to hot, so if your try keep the heat a safe distance and not too hot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-vL24bhq_M

https://www.youtube.com/results?sear...+with+heat+gun


Remember however, once you sand, you will remove that natural texture. It will be a smooth surface surrounded by textured. (the parts you didn't sand)

There are many methods, but all are very harsh. WD40 melts plastic.

Heat gun method may work but be CAREFUL you may burn or warp.

Check out you-tube for yourself for other procedures.

Heat gun method is probably your best option, but it is also the best possibility to cause unrepairable damage. It is best left to an experienced hand :twocents:

No argument there.

I had a thought though that there must be some sort of textured plastic coating one can get, I know SEM makes a lot of those kind of products. Gale must use something like then when finishing the A pillar gauge pods.

Not that I'm suggesting we are spray a coating on our plastic bits of course.

Gale uses SEM Texture black paint.

For my gauge pod I used Rustoleum texture black... very similar look.

For the OP though - the texture is more of a leather-look texture so he would have to sand and paint the whole section for it to look right... then paint the other side to match.

Thanks all - great help.

Anyone know if you can buy a replacement door panel? If so, where?

You can buy a door panel from the dealer... It will probably cost more than your car did brand new - if you want to buy brand new from a dealer I would start with courtesyparts.com since they discount their parts from MSRP.

Or try to find one in good shape at a wreck yard. You can look around to see whats available in your area on car-part.com.

Ebay also has a lot of used/new OEM parts.

And also some folks part their cars out in the classified section of this forum.

courtesyparts.com sells da oem bits.

both good approaches noted. ive personally tried both with much success..

1. heat gun method. just be very careful you dont over heat the area. go slow and start with lower heat setting.
2. SEM paint.

Not Cheap.

You can start here. Check your model!!!!

INTERIOR TRIM - DOOR for 2010 Nissan 370Z

You can change your Vehicle model on the upper R/H corner of page. Also, there is a table of contents with more parts.

Here's your source for interior plastic graining pads. I bought a set to try to repair some damage on on the driver's door window ledge. I got it too hot and just created more damage and ended up replacing the full door shell for about $480. It would have driven me nuts otherwise.

Someone posted on the forum a while back about repairing these scratches with heat. I think it was sometime last year. I believe it was the center console area that they repaired and in the photos provided it looked like a success. I would start with a hair dryer before using a heat gun.

Search on the forum and you should find it. You may find something on Youtube as well.

+1 for heat gun. The one I have is adjustable heat setting and a small tip nozzle. Basically as stated above start low and bring heat up. It's hard to describe without pics, but essentially when scratched it will look "white" where scratch is when temp is just hot enough the white section will start to sort of gloss back over to black.

I did this on a friends 370z and it worked fine.. I've done the same on many other cars. They all came out great when I started low and gently raised temps. The ones I have messed up in the past "there were a few due to learning curve" were due to me jacking the heat up and flashing the area around the fix. Those ended up requiring dye/paint afterwards to match properly due to discoloring around the area repaired.